1. The Adventures of Captain Underpants

If Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is the foundational work of modern American fiction, then Captain Underpants is the foundational work of poop fiction. After the release of this masterpiece, USA today said “[Pilkey is] the best-selling bad boy of children’s literature.” The Educational Book & Media Association calls him a “talented artist and inventive humorist as well as a subtle moralist.” High praise well deserved for the artist who created what some have called the most gallant hero-fool in all of Western literature: a hypnotized principle who fights crime in his whitey tighties and a torn curtain. First Quixote, then Falstaff, and now: Captain Underpants.

2. The Moose with Loose Poops

This gripping story of gastroenteritis tells the tale of Miles, a moose who gets diarrhea on a family picnic outing in Maine. Though some Historians have proposed a connection between Cowan’s story and Theodore Roosevelt’s maritime war actions following the battleship Maine’s explosion in the harbor of Havana, Cuba in 1898, those claims remain unsolidified.

3. The Day My Butt Went Psycho

In this thrilling tale of geopolitical struggle, a terrorist cell of butts have fled their owners’ bodies. The rogue butts plan to knock humanity unconscious with a fart of immeasurable megatonage delivered by the Bumcano—a (you guessed it) massive, volcanic butt. With humanity incapacitated, the butts plan to return to their owners and reclaim their rightful seat: on their owners’ heads! This evocative drama will send you ass over teakettle. Faithful to its claim of truthfulness, the story is a symbolic retelling of the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis.*
*No it’s not.

4. Poopendous!

The Amazon book description says: “Rhyming couplets feature Professor Poopdeck and two young friends as he takes them on a type of poop safari.” Professor Poopdeck? Is that really the best you could come up with!? “Poopdeck” is a spondee; it totally jacks with the pentameter. Somewhere under Stratford, Shakespeare is weeping into his leather gloves.

5. Walter the Farting Dog

The condensed Amazon editorial review: “Walter passes gas morning, noon, and night, no matter what he eats, whether it’s a 25-pound bag of low-fart dog biscuits, cat food, or fried chicken. On the bright side, “If Uncle Irv let one slip, he just went and stood near Walter.” When Father reaches the limit of his patience with Walter’s flatulence, he decides the pooch is once again pound-bound. Poor Walter knows his days are numbered and “He resolved to hold in his farts forever.” That very night, two burglars break into Walter’s family’s house, and Walter gasses the burglars with a “hideous cloud” that forces them to drop their loot and run into the clutches of the police officers, “choking and gasping for air.” The next morning Father and Mother discover Walter has saved the day—or at least their silverware and VCR.” The latest and greatest of wind-breaking fiction.

6. The Butt Book

In this educational text, Artie Bennett reminds us that every living organism on planet earth has a butt. This delightful story will have you celebrating the callipygian all around you. “Bro, check out the ass on that pigeon over there. Dude, that’s a nice pigeony ass right there.”

7. Zombie Butts from Uranus!

In this interstellar epic of soothsayers, reincarnation, and the occult, Zach Freeman saves the planet, nay the galaxy, from an army of zombie butts brought to life by a methane explosion on Uranus. Reviewers rave: “A heart-stopping, nostril-burning sequel to the international bestseller The Day My Butt Went Psycho!.” Owing a heavy debt to Macbeth, Ridley Scott’s Alien, and Tolkien Mythos, Griffiths weaves a tale of youthful wanderlust, intense emotion, and Sisyphean pursuit in this powerful sequel.

8. Chicken Butt!

“An unhinged piece of slap-happy rhyming…rocket-propelled artwork…the romp is a powerful piece of cacophony, more frenetic by the moment.”—Kirkus Reviews. Geez, I wonder what the Kirkus Review had to say about 50 Shades of Grey.

9. WTFD: Trouble at the Yard Sale

In this highly-anticipated sequel, our canine hero Walter is sold at the family garage sale to a clown who intends to weaponize the dog’s extreme flatulence. The Clown plans to force Walter to inflate balloons with his farts so he can use the stinky balloons like stun grenades during a series of bank robberies. (no shit* — that is actually what happens.)
*pun intended

10. Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants

This exciting fourth novel by the bad boy of children’s lit Dav Pilkey attempts to prove that no amount of alliteration is annoying, no matter how lengthy, lude, laughable, ludicrous, or laborious for readers. In the book, a genius Swiss scientist, Professor Pippy Pee-pee Poopypants (yes, you got that right), is driven mad when the global scientific community laughs at his name despite his having simultaneously solved world hunger and the global environmental crisis. He holds a school hostage (in a sad play for attention) using a giant robot intended for gerbils and is defeated by Captain Underpants. Of the book, Newsweek said: “A cry from hell, a brutal, terrifying, and savagely funny book that swings between uncontrolled hallucination and fierce, exact satire.”*
*No they didn’t.

11. WTFD: Goes on a Cruise

At long last, poop fiction moves beyond bathroom banality to offer a poignant cultural critique. In this latest installment, Walter has a uniquely American experience: the bowel discomfiture that follows gorging oneself at the greasy buffets of an ostentatious floating shopping mall. The horrible odor that permeates the U.S.S. Sea Wind becomes symbolic of the consumerist malaise that attends late capitalism. Though portrayed as noxious, the smell acts as cleanser, revealing the ship for what it really is: a sad, degraded space empty of meaning.